Maybe the coalition assault rifle should be changed from assault to battle rifle.

Weren't you arguing about the lack of realism in bazookas a page back, and now fail to consider that FN SCAR only has semi- and full-auto firing, Left4Dead is not a proper source of facts.
Furthermore the Coalition AR should be an basic AR, the perfect balanced starting weapon.

Nah, the coalition assault rifle should be a more damage oriented one, higher caliber and less bullets per mag. You can leave the ronin have the older and "basic" assaults rifles, like the YAK 47.

Considering that in future missions you'll only be able to order stuff from one or two factions per game, every faction should have a full compliment of weapons, actors and craft.
Therefore, the coalition AR should be the generic automatic rifle of the faction.

We just need less generic stuff and more variety.

I think that factions should be more specialized; that way, you'll have to think about which people you wanna please, because they might have the gear that fits your playstyle. I don't want all the factions to be almost the same, but with a different coat of paint. That'd be weak.

Yeah! That's what I think.

The problem is that they already have a lot of weapons, so it is quite probable that many of them will be very similar.

I think factions should have more unique weaponry, for example, Dummies have high powered energy beam stuff (Destroyer Cannon and the Annhilitaor), Coalition soldiers have explosive oriented stuff (Spike Launcher and Uber Cannon) and Ronin guys have the random-but-effective stuff (RPC).

So apart from having the basic type of weapons, because all the factions have pistols, automatic rifles and snipers, they should have more specialized weapon sets, so less generic stuff and more variety.

Or, you could simply let TradeStar sell the generic and basic stuff and have the other factions sell their specialized stuff.

That Tradestar idead sounds pretty darn cool. And yeah, I suppose lots of samey factions that just look different would be boring.

If you think, TradeStar already sells the generic and basic stuff pretty straight-forwardly; it doesn't have 10 different assault rifles or very wierd stuff, it sells the things that you would need for a specific role right away.


So, TradeStar = Basic stuff, Rest Of The Factions = Epic-Less-Generic-More-Specialized-And-Different stuff.

Interestingly, my mindset is almost the opposite. A more accuracy-oriented rifle for the Coalition, with a large clip at the cost of stopping power. Ronin strike me as the kind to have guns with abysmal accuracy and middling clip sizes, but very fast rates of fire and they hit really hard, on the odd occasion they manage to hit.

I've always thought Ronin as the weaker and innacurate but with huge clips and very fast firing, and the Coalition as the slow and steady overkill.

But maybe I think that because if you say Ronin I think tommygun and you say Coalition and I think heavy sniper rifle.

Coalition heavy weapons are definately of the big slow and overkill flavor, but their small-arms seem to be very basic, light and practical. For instance the Coalition shotgun is one of the most reliable weapons in the game, and it's very much built around good accuracy and rate of fire. The Ronin SPAS-12 is more powerful and faster firing, but due to it's massive spread and shorter range, it's less practical. Similar story with the bazooka, M16 and handguns like the Desert Eagle and Peacemaker. They're all very powerful and fire very quickly, but good luck landing accurate hits

And what's up with the dummy weapons?
I mean, we haven't talk about those. And I wouldn't know how to classify those. When I see them I just think "industrial".

Dummy weapons strike me as the sort of thing a fledgling AI might manufacture/re-purpose out of service bots and tools. I'm pulling this completely out of my butt but the way I figure it went was the Dummy AI had an archive of tool designs, and immediately began manufacturing nailguns, as they had the most practicality as a weapon right off the bat.

So the dummies probably initially went into combat using nailguns, diggers, and rudimentary explosives made from mining charges. All the while the Dummy AI is analyzing enemy weapons and developing it's own. Firing superheated nails probably came as a result of older construction techniques; hot rivets were an extreme hazard when they were used to construct skyscrapers.

We find the dummies still in development of weapons. More developed versions of the improvised weapons exist in the nail weapons and grenades. They have their own versions of Coalition weaponry such as the grenade launcher and sniper rifle, but manufactured en masse with cheaper materials for efficiency. Direct copies are not used as they may be costly in materials, and their own weapons match performance to an acceptable level. Weapons development is moving forward at an exponential rate, and experimental weapons like the Annihilator and Destroyer are being deployed.

So Dummy weapons could come in three flavors; improvised and subsequently weaponised tools, direct analogues of other factions' weaponry, and advanced weaponry developed as the AI rapidly learns and improves.

It's a common trope; to have an AI become sentient and begin with improvised items and rapidly develop into something more advanced than humanity, but I don't think I've ever seen such a race portrayed midway through that process.

I was hoping that the dummies' weapons would have some more force behind 'em. Ya know, they're crash-test dummies made to get knocked around and all, I think their weapons should reflect that - the original, physical-projectile revolver cannon? That would be a PERFECT dummy weapon in my opinion.